The Top Mobile Casinos Online

Expert guide to playing casino games for real money on your mobile phone or tablet

The invention of the online casino was a huge step forward for gamblers everywhere. There are a number of reasons why these sites proved to be so popular among players, but the biggest one was undoubtedly the level of convenience they brought to casino gaming. No longer was it necessary to drive for hours or take a vacation just to play blackjack or slots. Now, all of these games were right on your computer, letting you play whenever you wanted, right from your home.

But this was just the first stage in an ongoing trend of increased access to gaming we’ve seen in the industry. Currently, the biggest growth area in the gaming world is mobile gambling. Mobile casinos bring all of the same great games to your phone, tablet, or other portable device, giving you even more opportunity to play for real money when you want and where you want. And if you haven’t tried these games, you might be surprised to find out just how similar they are to the online options you already enjoy.

The sites listed below have been hand-selected by our editors based on 3 main criteria:

Excellent mobile experience with a large library of the top mobile friendly games

Highly trusted and secure sites with full encryption and safety for mobile users and data protection

Quick and easy to signup, deposit and withdraw when using your mobile phone or tablet

Best Mobile Casinos for 2017

Mobile Casino Games Anytime, Anywhere

It may be hard to believe, but mobile gaming is not much different than any other form of online play you’ve experienced. You can play all of the same game types you’d enjoy through a downloadable client or a browser-based platform, just on a much smaller screen.

As with these more traditional casino sites, you’ll find that slots are the dominant force when to comes to playing on the go. In fact, this is even more apparent for these games, as they tend to be a bit easier to port for developers: once they’ve gotten the concept of making one machine smartphone-friendly, it’s easy enough to use that experience to bring more games online. It also doesn’t hurt that these tend to be the most popular games, and since the most in-demand titles tend to be the first ones to find their way to new platforms, the initial rollouts tend to be slots heavy.

But don’t take this to mean that you can only play the one-armed bandits when playing at an iPhone casino. The truth is that a wide range of games are available, just as you would see at any casino. Table games are almost always offered in some number, with blackjack and roulette being the most common. Others, like craps, baccarat, and Caribbean Stud Poker, are also frequently included in mobile packages. Video poker is also common, with games like Jacks or Better and Deuces Wild being among the most likely to be seen in a site’s mobile-friendly selection.

The main thing to understand is that if you want to play a certain type of game, you’ll almost certainly be able to do so on your phone and tablet. While the game selections tend to be a bit smaller for these devices than for the “full” casinos you can play on your computer, that gap is closing, meaning that players hardly suffer while playing on their other devices.

Rapidly Improving Experience

While it’s true that the experience you’ll get on a phone isn’t the same as the one you’ll have playing via a computer, this is an area in which software developers have made great strides in recent years. Exactly what you’ll get out of a mobile platform varies depending on whose games you are playing, but there are definitely some that have brought their versions close to in line with their original casinos.

One of the biggest reasons for this is the rapid implementation of HTML5. This latest version of the HTML standard did a couple of different things that were beneficial for cross-platform development, including implementing features that were designed for low-powered devices. The result is that many games are now developed in this language, and can then be released for the main casino as well as for Apple, Android, and other devices simultaneously.

The result has been astounding. Many developers now release all of their newest games for mobile users and desktop platforms at exactly the same time, meaning there are fewer disappointed customers who can’t play their favorite game on their phones. But more than just improving game selection, it has also brought the features more in line with what you might expect to see on your computer. The graphics, sounds, and animations can now be very similar or identical on various platforms, making these games way more fun to play while on the go.

Where there are differences, they tend to be what you would expect: simplifications designed with the lower power of these devices in mind. For instance, if a slot machine is originally designed exclusively for compatibility with Windows PCs, it might have some intense 3D graphics. These would cause long load times and slowdowns (if they would work at all) on a smartphone, so they might be cut out for the mobile release. Other considerations involve the smaller screen sizes: you might see menus moved, excess design features eliminated, or buttons consolidated so that these games work well on even a small iPhone.

Mobile Devices

There are now a multitude of mobile devices on which to play casino games online. We've covered each of these in more details in the sections below:

iPhone casinos: The world's most popular smartphone, the iphone also boasts the largest number of real money gamers.

iPad Casinos: Like the iPhone, the iPad is the industry leading tablet with a huge user base and a mobile experience that is closed to that found on the desktop.

Android casinos: While iPhone has the biggest user base, Android is the dominant operating system in modern mobile devices, outpacing iOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry and all other pretenders to the throne.

Safe and Secure

As long as there has been online gambling, there have been concerns over the safety and security of playing. However, operators have generally been very careful about ensuring that their players are getting a safe and fair experience each time they play, and that commitment has translated over to their mobile operations as well.

Regardless of what device you use to play, the vast majority of gaming sites protect your profile information using high-tech, state-of-the-art encryption methods that are designed to ensure you won’t become a victim of identity theft. Most sites are careful not to store financial information, while using similar encryption technology to protect that data when you make deposits or withdrawals. When it comes to playing on a tablet or smartphone, you may also be restricted from using certain banking methods or logging in until you complete verification procedures – just another way in which operators are careful to protect you from any form of fraud.

Similar methods are taken to make sure that the games being played are truly fair and random. All reputable sites have their offerings regularly tested by independent labs in order to certify that they are truly random and unpredictable. These days, you may even have access to sites that are regulated by your local government, adding yet another layer of oversight that may help you feel more comfortable and confident in the integrity of the sites you play on.

Few Players Left Out

If you play online gambling games on your computer, you may have noticed that most downloadable platforms are designed for Windows. That isn’t such a big problem anymore, as the industry has largely gone to web-based solutions that work no matter what operating system you’re running. But that leads to an obvious question: with so many different devices, brands, and operating systems out there in the mobile world, will you be able to play on your particular device?

Thankfully, most players will find that the answer is a resounding yes. Today, more and more operators and software developers are – perhaps taking the lead from their experiences with desktop computers – creating web-based mobile platforms rather than apps. This has the effect of making it much easier for a wide variety of players, phones, and tablets to connect and play without having compatibility issues.

That’s not to say that everyone is on completely equal footing. The iPhone and Android-based models are certainly at a significant advantage, in that compatibility with these operating systems are definitely the priority for anyone who is developing a mobile-friendly site. And when apps do exist, they are primarily designed for those two systems.

But one of the reasons for the shift away from apps is how the two companies in charge of the world’s most popular mobile operating systems handle gambling. Apple won’t allow real money apps in their iTunes Store unless they come from a company that is licensed to offer such games (and even then, only in markets where they hold a license). Android users are at a slight advantage here: while the Google Play store operates under similar rules, the open source nature of the OS allows operators to provide their own apps directly, provided that the user is willing to override some default settings to allow the installation of such applications.

But the most common way to access casino games through phones and tablets today is simply by opening the phone’s browser and navigating over to the mobile casino site, where the games will be hosted in an optimized form designed to run smoothly on your device. Often, this means specific compatibility guaranteed with all relatively new iPhones and Android devices, as well as “likely” compatibility with Windows Phone, Blackberry, and more. Sometimes, more complete collections of smartphones and tablets are specifically supported, but even if they aren’t, it’s usually worth trying to log in – you’ll often be surprised at just how wide a range of products are supported.

And since these platforms are optimized for less powerful devices, you can feel pretty confident that just about anything you connect with will be able to handle running them – and if not, there are usually ways to further turn down the settings to reduce the graphical complexity or the data load. We wouldn’t recommend trying to play on an old flip phone, but most other devices will work with at least some sites.

Getting Started

One of the most intimidating aspects of online gambling is the process of opening an account and making your first deposit. This can be doubly true when dealing with mobile play: as much as everyone uses their smartphone for everyday functions today, not everyone is comfortable using these tiny devices for complex typing or filling out forms – the kind of things you do when opening a new gambling account.

If the process sounds a little daunting to you, we have good news on a couple of different fronts. First, the signup process isn’t all that complex: if you really have to, you can likely set up your account on a phone, and you can likely use a number of popular deposit options from a mobile device as well. Equally important is the fact that you’re welcome to do as much of the setup work as you want from a standard desktop or laptop: at any site you play on, you’ll only have a single account from which you can enjoy both mobile and traditional online play.

In fact, it is often better to do your account setup and first deposit from a computer if you have the chance. The process may be a bit easier, and at many sites, you’ll have more options available to you: some operators restrict your banking options from your phone until you’ve successfully used them from a desktop client first.

Either way, signup at most sites takes just a couple of minutes. You’ll need to supply some basic information, like your name, address, and phone number, as well as verify that you’re from an area where the company accepts new players (though the registration system will usually catch ineligible players on its own). You’ll normally also get the opportunity to pick a username, and you will need to set a password for your account.

Once your account is active, you’ll be able to play all of the free play options on the site. But to play for real money, you’ll need to make a deposit using any of the options offered. These will vary between different casinos, but there is a lot of overlap, and most of the options offered to you will fit into one of the following categories:

Pay by Phone Casinos: By far the fastest growing way to deposit online is the use of pay by phone casinos. This state-of the art deposit method lets you use your phone bill to deposit and play at an ever-growing number of online gambling sites.

Credit Cards: Just like anything else you want to pay for on the Internet, online casino deposits are easily handled through the use of a credit or debit card. In most cases, you’ll want to use a Visa or MasterCard, as these are the most widely accepted brands that don’t have a general prohibition against the use of their cards for gambling purposes. However, every issuing bank may have their own policies, so your mileage may vary when trying to deposit in this manner.

E-Wallets: Once again, these products – which include well-known brands like PayPal – are commonly used throughout the web, so you may be familiar with how they work. Users open an account and can link it to a funding source, such as a bank account or a credit card, and then make payments using their wallet. The wallets can also store funds, making them perfect for receiving withdrawals as well. Popular brands in the gaming world include Neteller and Skrill.

Bank Transfers: Perhaps the most direct approach, this category refers to any method that moves money straight from your bank to the casino. Almost every site offers there, sometimes in a variety of different formats, including e-checks and wire transfers. The same methods can also often be used to withdraw funds.

Prepaid Products: Many vouchers, cards, and other items can be purchased that allow you to pay using any method you would like, after which that product can be used to transfer the value to an online casino. The most widely used example might be Ukash, a voucher system that can be purchased at thousands of retail locations worldwide. Each voucher comes with a pin that can be used to spend the money you put on it at the time of purchase.

While these are the most common methods available, others may be offered depending on where you play, so always check your site’s cashier section for details. In addition, not all methods are available in all countries; for instance, most Americans cannot use popular e-wallets like Skrill or Neteller to play at online gambling sites.

Withdrawals are handled through many of the same methods listed above, with e-wallets and bank transfers being particularly popular thanks to their simplicity for players. In addition, you might also be able to have the site send you your winnings by check, though the fact that this requires the check to be mailed to you may greatly increase your waiting period.

The Hottest Way to Play

With more and more people using mobile devices for so many of their everyday activities, it’s not at all surprising that the online casino industry is also looking to phones and other small screens as the future. More and more support is being given to players who want to play on these machines, and the possibilities for other ways to play without a desktop computer seem endless: games have already been developed for smartwatches, and products like the Oculus Rift have seen developers begin to produce virtual reality casinos for players to wander around in.

If you typically enjoy playing blackjack, roulette, slots or other games on your computer, check out those same games on your smartphone: you probably won’t need to open a new account, and you’ll be amazed at how much freedom you can enjoy when you’re no longer tethered to your desktop. And if you’re completely new to online gambling, there’s no better way to get started then by joining one of the many reputable and trustworthy online casinos that offer a full range of mobile gaming options.

Mobile Casino FAQ

Do I Need to Download Any Apps to Play?

Usually, the answer to this question is no. While some mobile casinos may offer apps for Android phones (and, less commonly, the iPhone), the more common way of accessing mobile gambling sites is through your phone or tablet’s web browser. That means that most of these sites support all modern phone models, provided you are using a well-known browser such as Chrome or Safari that is up to date.

What Types of Devices Can Access These Sites?

In terms of smartphones, almost all sites now support the use of any fairly recent iPhone model, as well as most major Android-using phones, including the popular Samsung Galaxy series. Increasingly, we’re also seeing support for Windows Phones and Blackberry devices through the use of mobile-optimized websites rather than apps.

If you’re using a tablet, the iPad is almost certainly your best bet. However, any device that uses the full Android operating system should be fine as well, given the strong support for Android in the current market. One word of caution, however: some devices, like the Amazon Fire line, may use limited forms of the operating system that will not work with all sites.

Is Mobile Gaming Legal in my Country?

Obviously, the answer to this question varies depending on where you live. In almost all cases, it’s safe to say that you won’t get in trouble for playing on sites: even in places where online gambling isn’t legal, that means that it is illegal to offer these games, not to simply play them. That means you should feel pretty safe playing these games almost no matter where you live.

In some locations, you may have access to locally regulated and licensed sites; others will have to rely on overseas options. For more details on the legal situation and options in your country, you may wish to consult a page with information on the current laws of your country.

What Banking Options are Available?

Once again, the answer to this question will depend somewhat on where you live. However, there are a number of options that are common across most parts of the world. Some of the most popular methods for deposits include credit cards, e-wallets like Neteller and Skrill, bank transfers, and prepaid products. When it comes time to cash out, you might receive your money straight to your bank account, by a check, or through the same e-wallet you used to make a deposit.

What Games Can I Play at Mobile Casinos?

There are thousands of different games offered by dozens of software developers. The majority of these are slot machines, but you can also play table games like blackjack, baccarat, craps and roulette. Other common options include video poker, keno, and scratch cards. Of course, there are also other kinds of gambling sites with mobile support too: you can play real money poker or bet on sports while on the go, as well.